PUBLISH…AND BE DAMNED!

One freezing December day in 1824, the Duke of Wellington, Britain’s most famous soldier and politician, received a letter hand delivered to his London home. It was from a low-grade publisher and pornographer who was about to print the biography of Harriette Wilson, one of the Duke’s many mistresses. The book, wrote the publisher, would contain the Duke’s passionate letters and would be hugely embarrassing to the soldier. It was a thinly veiled threat of blackmail, but printing of the book would cease, if His Grace paid up.

THE DUKE OF WELLINGTON

“Publish and be damned!”

Wellington’s response has remained famous, long after the publisher’s light had been extinguished.

The Duke wrote back, tersely, “publish, and be damned!”

But for most authors today, it’s more a case of “damned publishers.”

Relationships these days between authors and their publishers are usually far more cordial than those between the Duke and the pornographer, but the Duke’s opinion of the publishing industry is much the same for the tens of thousands of hopeful writers whose manuscripts are rejected months after they’ve been submitted.

My own experience, having published many novels, courtesy of HarperCollins, Penguin, and Simon & Schuster, three of the world’s largest publishing houses, is that the people they employ are dedicated, highly intelligent, and thoroughly professional, and for a writer, it’s generally a pleasure to spend time in their offices discussing how to improve a manuscript.

But that only happens when you’re one of their authors. These days, getting yourself onto the lists of a publishing company, large or small when you’re just starting out, can be a Herculean and heart-breaking task. Often, early-stage writers with a completed manuscript feverently hope and pray that the enthusiasm they showed in submitting it, will be at the same level of enthusiasm as a publisher experiences on receiving it.

Yeah! Right!

The truth in almost every case couldn’t be further from the fiction. Unlike mss submitted by a well-known author or by a literary agent, submissions from unknowns, far from being welcomed with unbridled joy, are often treated like unexploded bombs.

They arrive at the postal department, where they’re logged to ensure they’re not lost in the tsunami of paper which floods all publishing offices, and because they’ve been logged and are now in the system, they step up to the first rung of the publication ladder. They’re then placed on a large pile in the ‘Slush Room’, where unsolicited manuscripts are dumped. From time to time, usually at the end of the day, somebody from the publishing department, though rarely a decision-maker, will open the door to the slush room, and pick up a ms at random to take home and read over a coffee.

If the junior member of the publishing team gets past the first and second chapter without making adverse comments, then they’ll often dive into the centre of the book, and then the end, to ensure that the standard of writing is maintained.

If the junior doesn’t like the work, then it most likely won’t proceed to the second rung of that fateful ladder. If this is the case, then a rejection note is pinned to the ms, and it’s put back into an envelope, send back to the mailroom, and posted back to the heart-broken writer. And this is a process which can take…..literally…..months. And during those months, writers wait patiently every morning by the mailbox, praying for a letter of acceptance from the publisher. Maybe even lunch in the boardroom. What they’re praying doesn’t happen is a card from the post office, telling them that there’s a large parcel waiting for them to collect. You guessed it…..their returned manuscript.

But on rare occasions, if the young person from the publishing department likes it, then it may progress to the next rung up the ladder, which is a senior publishing assistant, or a junior publisher, with a recommendation that it be read and assessed for possible publication.

And so it goes on, over a period of many weeks or months, until it reaches the desk of a massively overworked Director of Publishing. If he or she gives it the tick of approval, then it’s on its way.

Or is it?

Nope! Not at all.

Because in large publishing houses, there are publishers of books of fiction, non-fiction, sports, cooking, gardening, personal advancement, DIY, educational, health, money and a variety of other topics and genres….and each of these worthy publishers is competing against all his or her colleagues for precious dollars to bolster their publication lists. But it’s not only money, because each publisher is vying for the approval of the Marketing and Sales management. If they say that this particular book won’t appeal to the bookshops, or the buying public, then it’s unlikely to receive approva.

All of this is set against a budget laid down by the person at the top….the CEO or Managing Director….who determines how many books his company will publish in which month, how much will be spent on advertising, and how much of what’s left will be given to the author.

But it doesn’t end there, because often, the CEO’s budgets are approved by an international board run by a President who sits on a chair in his 102nd storey office in downtown New York, looking over the East River, a person who holds the fate of you and your manuscript in his hands.

YOU MAY NEVER GET TO MEET THE MEN OR WOMEN IN THE PUBLISHING HOUSE’S H.Q.,

BUT YOUR FATE IS IN THEIR ANONYMOUS HANDS

Now, if all this sounds daunting, and deeply depressing, then it both is…and isn’t. Only a handful of submissions by unknown writers are ever accepted by publishing houses. Most publishers these days rely on literary agents to submit the work of authors to them. But getting onto the books of a literary agent is an uphill task. There are many, especially in the major capitals, but most of their lists are closed. Still, unlike the publishers of old, who would nurture raw talent and turn them into top line writers, the Agent has now largely taken over that role. But it’s still a steep uphill climb to get yourself an agent.

So how do you begin to become an author? You’ve finished your book; it’s been read by family and friends who all tell you it’s terrific, a masterpiece and the modern equivalent of Shakespeare; but opinions like that won’t get it published. And unfortunately, unless you’re already well known from another profession, like a journalist, an actor or a sports personality, publishing a novel is slightly harder than ascending to the top of Mt. Everest.

REACHING THE TOP OF EVEREST IS EASIER THAN GETTING A NOVEL PUBLISHED

It’s a numbers game, I’m afraid. But you can reduce the odds of rejection by reading the publisher’s criteria for submissions on their website. Don’t send your romance novel to a publisher whose books are about DIY. Make sure your book fits your intended publisher’s requirements.

Sending your book to a single publisher means waiting at least two or three months for a rejection. So on that basis, you can only submit your book to four or five publishers a year. But if you submit the book to ten or twenty publishers, most will probably still reject you, but the chances are much greater that you’ll strike lucky with one of them. But if you’re rejected by all of them, then read their rejection letters carefully. Most, of course, will be the standard brush-off, telling you that it doesn’t fit their lists, or that they’re not accepting unsolicited mss. But one or two might have read it, and will reply with something like, “your central character, Dolly, didn’t have a strong enough voice, and frankly her decision to leave the house was hard to believe.”

If you’re lucky enough to get this considered professional criticism, listen to it and, if you think there’s truth, then rewrite Dolly’s decisions.

Then send your book out to another ten or twenty publishers.

In future blogs, I’ll discuss the Submission letter and what you should send to the publisher.

Until then, keep writing, and keep rewriting. And when you’ve finished your book, put it away and don’t read it for at least two or three weeks. Then return to it, and rewrite the parts which disappoint you.

…..and when you’ve done that, do it again.